DRM in a paysite members area. Good or Bad?
 

Anyone have any experience? Does adding DRM actually increase retention? Or just piss off your members?

Yes it pisses them off

bump la bump

i hate it, i like being able to download all content within the 3 day trial or whatever and watch it whenever i want

it depends.

General, non exclusive, saturated niches, it's good to have DRM, specially if you're using trials. We're working on software to give free trials with DRM for short lapses and then the non-DRM comes once the surfer becomes a full member

on very specific niches, or niches with all exclusive content updated periodically, DRM is not needed, members retain just because of the updates and content

if you've no idea about DRM, it's better to avoid it, it's a great thing if used in a creative way. If you just use DRM for your content "as is", better cross fingers

then this is a webmaster board, not surfer's... :(

:( :( :( :(

pstation just tell em your a webmaster like everyone else does :1orglaugh

I've done some research on drm and it seems alot people report customers complaining like crazy. I for one hate bitching customers so im holding off.

We only use it for the customer who's terrified of recurs to their credit card:

Payperscene is our one and (so far) only forray into this arena.

Personally I think members dont like it.

Reality cash started with it, removed it, never looked back.
Xbang cash started with it, removed it.

There's a reason for that.

yup. i heard the same thing. interesting concept though, there is an appeal to it from the progrmas side....

It all depends on how you disclose to the members at the time of join. DRM is THE single best way to recover lost income from your members out there right now.

well, I wouldn't go that further, but if you know what you're doing, it's quite good. yet not even close to a total solution, and far to be THE best way to recover lost income. It's just another way, nothing else :2 cents:

Surfers hate it. Now just use basic logic, is it easier to sell a surfer something he loves, or something he hates?

If i would sign up for a site that doesnt clearly mention it uses drm for the member area i would ask for a refund and in the worst case do a cb.

Some claim it will be the future. I think the amount of pissed of surfers will make them think different in a year or so.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion :)

People tend to confuse DRM with content protection, imo.

I have never had a single complaint from a member about the DRM on any of my sites. I have had several complaints from people who were no longer members asking how come the videos didn't play anymore, which I loved to hear.

I also use DRM on my free samples, let them get circulated for a few months, then start sending that traffic back to my site. Seen a lot of sign-ups from this.

Also great for Payperview...

the list goes on...

very very interesting idea. :)

This is what all the fucking surfers do, and why trials suck!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

my trials are at $ US 8.95 or Euros 8.95 ....

DRM is not well understood by surfers and will impact directly and negatively on your chargeback ratios ....
Maybe it will be good in the future, but right now it is not a good idea :2 cents:

someone say DRM?
KK is right, its the best way to recover lost income among many other things :)
But then again its my market, so i say YA to DRM ;)

:) :) Perhaps putting in a data transfer limit would help, maybe 1GB/day can be downloaded while on the trial period

i would think drm is a good idea especially if you offer full movie downloads. I see way too many sites with their full length exclusive movies on BearShare

Needs to get a bit more userfriendly on the surfer side and a lot of sites would need to be using it to break the fears of the surfers. We would like to use it for various reasons as KK pointed out but have no plans to start "experimenting" with DRM until it gets a bit further down the line.

what sucks about drm is that they don't work for mac users